For Black Women, a Warning on Breast Cancer : Health: Panel concludes that treatment and preventive measures must be made more accessible and affordable.

Isolation from information and treatment about breast cancer is hazardous to the health of black women. That, in essence, was the message from speaker after speaker last week at a hearing convened by state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) at Park Hills Community Church in View Park.

UCLA surgeon Susan Love, one of the panelists, noted that black women are more likely than white women to die of the disease; breast cancer is the cause of death for one of 30 black women, compared with a rate of one out of 36 for whites.

To combat this, Love said, treatment and preventive measures must be made more accessible and affordable to black women. At the same time, she said, society needs to find ways to recognize breast cancer as a health problem for black women; most commercials and public service announcements about breast cancer, for example, use young white women as models, she said.

In general, Love said, women need to know that regular mammograms, which cost about $200, are essential for women over 50, but are of little use for younger women.

Panelists and attendees agreed, however, that awareness is not the only problem: Many black women cannot afford a mammogram and do not have transportation to the sites that perform the tests.

Watson staffers said that scheduling the hearing at a community church in a predominantly African-American neighborhood was part of an effort to spread the word on breast cancer to black women.

“Why talk to just the committee? We already know (the issues). We have to tell the community,” said Watson aide Leah Cartabruno.

About 70 people attended the hearing Wednesday, many of them health care professionals and breast cancer survivors.

Some women said they were in the dark because their doctors did not advise them to have a mammogram.

One survivor said that three weeks after she found a lump in her breast four years ago, her doctor performed a mammogram--then determined it “inconclusive.”

“That was crazy because the knot was obvious to the eye and the hand,” said Beverly Rhine. “It was the size of a quarter, and growing.”

When she asked him for a referral to a specialist for a second opinion, the doctor wrote on the referral slip, “routine appointment.”

By the time she was examined by the specialist, the cancer had advanced to a more severe stage.

“He in essence had my life in his hands,” Rhine said. “He put me at a higher risk of dying. I was so angry that I literally wanted to go back and bite his leg off.”

To share these and other frustrations, she and other women meet regularly as members of the Women of Color Breast Cancer Survivor Support Project at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital.

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Aside from talking about breast cancer more openly, Love urged the predominantly black female audience to lobby Congress for more research. “We need a blood test that will find it real early,” she said. “ ‘Poison, slash and burn’ is a dumb way to deal with the disease.”

The disparaging reference to the common existing treatments--chemotherapy, surgery and radiation--was lost on no one.

Watson, meanwhile, urged those in attendance to take the responsibility of looking after themselves.

“You’re only a victim if you let yourself be a victim,” she said.

* CANCER SCREENINGS

For further information: Low-cost mammograms will be offered at Faithful Central Missionary Baptist Church in South-Central L.A. starting Dec. 4. (213) 753-2486. The American Cancer Society organizes a variety of breast cancer support groups, including one starting Monday 11/1 in Culver City (310) 390-8766; The Women of Color Breast Cancer Survivor Support Project meets every other Saturday at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital (213) 754-2961.